Canada's Irwin Cotler joins defence of Venezuelan terrorist

The Hypocrisy of Leopoldo Lopez’s New Lawyer, Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler is member of the Canadian Parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights which declared itself in favour of the Venezuelan terrorist Leopoldo Lopez.

To these Members of Parliament, it is alright that 43 Venezuelans died because of Leopoldo Lopez' attempt to overthrow the democratic and legitimate government of Venezuela with outright street violence - violence that would not be tolerated in Canada.

Feb 9th 2015,
by TeleSUR/ Pablo Vivanco and Luis Granados

Venezuelan opposition figures were quick to gloat about their latest international ally. Irwin Cotler, a long-time Canadian member of parliament for the Liberal Party, reportedly signed on to become part of the legal team for former Venezuelan politician Leopoldo Lopez, who is currently jailed for his role in the deadly rioting that rocked Venezuela in early 2014.

Carlos Vecchio, a leading member of Lopez’s political party Popular Will, boasted that, “(Nelson) Mandela’s lawyer in considering going to Ramo Verde”, the jail where Lopez is being held. Quickly, the international press – who have been exceptionally busy of late printing any stories that puts the Venezuelan government in a bad light – picked up the story, also referring to the Canadian lawmaker as the lawyer for the famed South African liberation movement head.

Irwin Cotler was not Nelson Mandela's lawyer

Virtually no media picked up the declarations from South African leaders negating a connection between Cotler and Mandela.

"Irwin Cotler was not Nelson Mandela’s lawyer and does not represent the Government or the people of South Africa in any manner," the Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa to Venezuela Pandit Thaninga Shope-Linney said Thursday.

While these statement may make Cotler’s role in the struggle against South African apartheid hazy, his role in defending another country that has been accused of creating an apartheid system is clear.

Cotler, a vocal defender of Israeli apartheid

Cotler has long been one of the most vocal defenders of Israel in the Canadian Parliament and has deep connections to numerous Israel lobby organizations in Canada and the United States. The lawyer was one of three founders of the Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel group and was also the former president of the Canadian Jewish Congress which in recent decades has devoted an increasing amount of its focus towards Israel advocacy and painting pro-Palestinian activism as tantamount to anti-semitism.

In Parliament Hill, Cotler has been active in using his post to influence Canada’s foreign policy positions in favor of Israel. Cotler worked to undermine the credibility of United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, otherwise known as the Goldstone Report – ironically drafted by a South African judge – which accused both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas of war crimes in the 2009 attack on Gaza.

“You can’t have a situation where you have special sessions targeting Israel and the rest of the world has immunity,” Cotler said. “Within the U.N. system, there is a basis now to alter what is the source of the problem: the singling out of one member state for differential and discriminatory treatment under the existing legal framework.”

Israel kills over 2,000 but Cotler blames Hamas

More recently, following the devastating attack on Gaza that left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead and over 10,000 injured, Cotler placed the blame on Hamas.

“Hamas is a uniquely evil expression of genocidal anti-Semitism,” said Cotler.

While paying lip service to preventing further “tragedies,” Cotler went on to outline 15 recommendations – all of them geared towards placing further restrictions on Palestinians. Nowhere did the “human rights” lawyer even acknowledge the devastating blockade on Gaza, let alone the continued illegal building of settlements as a factor in the conditions that Palestinians face.

Cotler’s Israel advocacy is perhaps one of the reasons why he is looking to align with Venezuela’s opposition.

Under former President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela took unprecedented steps in support of Palestinian rights to statehood on the international stage, becoming one of the first country’s in Latin America to set up full diplomatic relations in 2009. Three years before, Venezuela also recalled its representatives from Israel in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which lead Chavez to call Israel a “terrorist state.”

Venezuela stands for Palestinian freedom

Indeed, Cotler is also an advisory board member of the board of U.N. Watch, which also has disproportionate focus on monitoring activity at the United Nations relating to Palestinian rights. Unsurprisingly, the organization – which also counts former members of the U.S. government in its board – has historically been opposed to the governments of the Bolivarian Revolution as evidenced by the group’s intense lobbying efforts against Venezuela's bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council and the declarations from the head of U.N. Watch who upon the death of President Chavez, called the former leader a “symbol of evil.”

With these connections and track record, it is hard to consider Cotler a neutral observer in Venezuelan affairs.

Cotler’s credentials on human rights and civil liberties in his own country are doubtful.

Having served as Justice Minister during the Liberal government of Jean Chretien, Cotler was responsible for Bill C-36, Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act which was passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York in 2001. The law was condemned by a slew of lawyers, as well as civil and human rights organizations, and has been used to permit massive surveillance on activists since.

Even while in opposition, Cotler has been conspicuously silent during flagrant abuses of civil rights by authorities in Canada.

Cotler stands for violation of civil rights in Canada

In 2010 when Canada was hosted the G-20 Summit, the police arbitrarily arrested over 1,000 people in what the Ontario Ombusman Andre Marin referred to as "a time period where martial law was set in the city of Toronto, leading to the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history."

In addition to the mass arrests – which included accusations of physical and sexual assault on protesters by police – several activists were preemptively arrested after police infiltrated groups and discovered that they intended to cause property damage, e.g. breaking windows of banks, in Toronto. Two of the arrested were sentenced to jail time, even though their arrests did not even allow them to participate in any demonstrations.

Cotler and his Liberal Party did not condemn this mass violation of civil rights which took place in the country's largest city and in plain sight.

Two years later, as hundreds of thousands of Quebec post-secondary students went on strike to protest an increase in tuition fees, the government responded with heavy-handed police tactics on protesters, including attacks on restaurant patrons and several serious injuries of peaceful protestors.

The Quebec government later passed a law that specifically prohibited gatherings of more than 50 people. Bill 78 was condemned by students, trade unions, as well as the Quebec Human Rights Commission. However, the member of parliament from Quebec once again said nothing about this violation of civil rights in his home province.

Cotler drafts "anti-terrorism" intended to stifle free speech

In late 2014, Cotler announced he would not run again for a seat in Canada’s Parliament. With his new found free time, he would do well to stick to issues in Canada, especially in light of the Conservative government’s intention to build on the anti-terrorism act that he drafted, which many lawyers and civil liberties groups are saying will be disastrous for the people of Canada.

U.S. inspired coup attempt in Venezuela

Venezuela: Coup in Real Time

by Eva Gollinger

U.S. media is increasing its systematic negative coverage of Venezuela

There is a coup underway in Venezuela. The pieces are all falling into place like a bad CIA movie. At every turn a new traitor is revealed, a betrayal is born, full of promises to reveal the smoking gun that will justify the unjustifiable. Infiltrations are rampant, rumors spread like wildfire, and the panic mentality threatens to overcome logic. Headlines scream danger, crisis and imminent demise, while the usual suspects declare covert war on a people whose only crime is being gatekeeper to the largest pot of black gold in the world.

This week, as the New York Times showcased an editorial degrading and ridiculing Venezuelan President Maduro, labeling him “erratic and despotic” (“Mr. Maduro in his Labyrinth”, NYT January 26, 2015), another newspaper across the Atlantic headlined a hack piece accusing the President of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, and the most powerful political figure in the country after Maduro, of being a narcotics kingpin (“The head of security of the number two Chavista defects to the U.S. and accuses him of drug trafficking”, ABC, January 27, 2015). The accusations stem from a former Venezuelan presidential guard officer, Leasmy Salazar, who served under President Chavez and was recruited by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), now becoming the new “golden child” in Washington’s war on Venezuela.

Two days later, the New York Times ran a front-page piece shaming the Venezuelan economy and oil industry, and predicting its downfall (“Oil Cash Waning, Venezuelan Shelves Lie Bare”, Jan. 29, 2015, NYT). Blaring omissions from the article include mention of the hundreds of tons of food and other consumer products that have been hoarded or sold as contraband by private distributors and businesses in order to create panic, discontent with the government and justify outrageous price hikes.

Sensationalist and misleading information

Simultaneously, an absurdly sensationalist and misleading headline ran in several U.S. papers, in print and online, linking Venezuela to nuclear weapons and a plan to bomb New York City (“U.S. Scientist Jailed for Trying to Help Venezuela Build Bombs”, Jan. 30, 2015, NPR). While the headline leads readers to believe Venezuela was directly involved in a terrorist plan against the U.S., the actual text of the article makes clear that no Venezuelans were involved at all. The whole charade was an entrapment set up by the FBI, whose officers posed as Venezuelan officials to capture a disgruntled nuclear physicist who once worked at Los Alamos.

U.S. harbours criminal, Antonio Rivero

That same day, State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki condemned the alleged “criminalization of political dissent” in Venezuela, when asked by a reporter about fugitive Venezuelan general Antonio Rivero’s arrival in New York to plea for support from the United Nations Working Committee on Arbitrary Detention. Rivero fled an arrest warrant in Venezuela after his involvement in violent anti-government protests that lead to the deaths of over 40 people, mainly government supporters and state security forces, last February. His arrival in the U.S. coincided with Salazar’s, evidencing a coordinated effort to debilitate Venezuela’s Armed Forces by publicly showcasing two high profile military officers — both former Chavez loyalists — that have turned against their government and are seeking foreign intervention against their own country.

These examples are just a snapshot of increasing, systematic negative and distorted coverage of Venezuelan affairs in U.S. media, painting an exaggeratedly dismal picture of the country’s current situation and portraying the government as incompetent, dictatorial and criminal. While this type of coordinated media campaign against Venezuela is not new — media consistently portrayed former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, elected president four times by overwhelming majorities, as a tyrannical dictator destroying the country — it is clearly intensifying at a rapid, and concerning, pace.

U.S. media campaign against Venezuela is not new

The New York Times has a shameful history when it comes to Venezuela. The Editorial Board blissfully applauded the violent coup d’etat in April 2002 that ousted President Chavez and resulted in the death of over 100 civilians. When Chavez was returned to power by his millions of supporters and loyal Armed Forces two days later, the Times didn’t recant it’s previous blunder, rather it arrogantly implored Chavez to “govern responsibly”, claiming he had brought the coup on himself. But the fact that the Times has now begun a persistent, direct campaign against the Venezuelan government with one-sided, distorted and clearly aggressive articles – editorials, blogs, opinion, and news – indicates that Washington has placed Venezuela on the regime change fast track.

The timing of Leamsy Salazar’s arrival in Washington as an alleged DEA collaborator, and his public exposure, is not coincidental. This February marks one year since anti-government protests violently tried to force President Maduro’s resignation. The leaders of the protests, Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado, have both been lauded by The New York Times and other “respected” outlets as “freedom fighters,” “true democrats,” and as the Times recently referred to Machado, “an inspiring challenger.” Even President Obama called for Lopez’s release from prison (he was detained for his role in the protest violence) during a speech last September at an event in the United Nations. These influential voices willfully omit Lopez’s and Machado’s involvement and leadership of violent, undemocratic and even criminal acts. Both were involved in the 2002 coup against Chavez. Both have illegally received foreign funding for political activities slated to overthrow their government, and both led the lethal protests against Maduro last year, publicly calling for his ouster through illegal means.

The utilization of a figure such as Salazar who was known to anyone close to Chavez as one of his loyal guards, as a force to discredit and attack the government and its leaders is an old-school intelligence tactic, and a very effective one. Infiltrate, recruit, and neutralize the adversary from within or by one of its own — a painful, shocking betrayal that creates distrust and fear amongst the ranks. While no evidence has surfaced to back Salazar’s outrageous claims against Diosdado Cabello, the headline makes for a sensational story and another mark against Venezuela in public opinion. It also caused a stir within the Venezuelan military and may result in further betrayals from officers who could support a coup against the government.

Venezuela is suffering from the sudden and dramatic plummet in oil prices. The country’s oil-dependent economy has severely contracted and the government is taking measures to reorganize the budget and guarantee access to basic services and goods, but people are still experiencing difficulties. Unlike the dismal portrayal in The New York Times, Venezuelans are not starving, homeless or suffering from mass unemployment, as countries such as Greece and Spain have experienced under austerity policies. Despite certain shortages — some caused by currency controls and others by intentional hoarding, sabotage or contraband — 95 percent of Venezuelans consume three meals per day, an amount that has doubled since the 1990s. The unemployment rate is under 6 percent and housing is subsidized by the state.

Nevertheless, making Venezuela’s economy scream is without a doubt a rapidly intensifying strategy executed by foreign interests and their Venezuelan counterparts, and it’s very effective. As shortages continue and access to dollars becomes increasingly difficult, chaos and panic ensue. This social discontent is capitalized on by U.S. agencies and anti-government forces in Venezuela pushing for regime change. A very similar strategy was used in Chile to overthrow socialist President Salvador Allende. First the economy was destroyed, then mass discontent grew and the military moved to oust Allende, backed by Washington at every stage. Lest we forget the result: a brutal dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet that tortured, assassinated, disappeared and forced into exile tens of thousands of people. Not exactly a model to replicate.

This year President Obama approved a special State Department fund of US $5 million to support anti-government groups in Venezuela. Additionally, the congressionally-funded National Endowment for Democracy is financing Venezuelan opposition groups with over US $1.2 million and aiding efforts to undermine Maduro’s government. There is little doubt that millions more for regime change in Venezuela are being funneled through other channels that are not subject to public scrutiny.

President Maduro has denounced these ongoing attacks against his government and has directly called on President Obama to cease efforts to harm Venezuela. Recently, all 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations, members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), publicly expressed support for Maduro and condemned ongoing U.S. interference in Venezuela. Latin America firmly rejects any attempts to erode democracy in the region and will not stand for another U.S.-backed coup. It’s time Washington listen to the hemisphere and stop employing the same dirty tactics against its neighbors.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Venezuela-Coup-in-Real-Time-20150201-0015.html

In the face of economic war

Commemoration of 57th anniversary fall of Pérez Jiménez dictatoship

by Lucas Koerner

Caracas, January 23, 2015 – Thousands took to the streets of the Venezuelan capital to commemorate the 57th anniversary of the toppling of the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship, as well as to voice their support for the government of President Nicolás Maduro in the face of economic war and political destabilization.

Setting out in the morning from Plaza Fabricio Ojeda in the historic 23 de Enero neighborhood, a combative barrio itself named after the date of Pérez Jiménez’s ousting, the march concluded in the Plaza O’Leary in El Calvario, where the President spoke and led a spirited rally, amidst a sea of red banners.

Shortages and the “economic war”

The march comes in the midst of severe inflation and widespread shortages of basic goods, which President Maduro has termed an “economic war” that is reportedly being waged against the Bolivarian government by elements of the opposition. The President accused distributors of hoarding everyday products and presented them with an ultimatum to cooperate or face “tough measures.”

In the face of this economic war, to which many attribute the reported drop in President Maduro’s approval ratings to 22%, Yulixa Jiménez, like thousands of others at Friday’s march, remains defiant.

“We as a revolutionary people are conscious of what the Right is doing to us, because it’s part of their fascist plan,” says the 20-year old student at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela. “We have to be conscious of what is happening, and we have to advance in the struggle to produce our own products and not depend so much on income from oil.”

Carlos Martínez, 30, of La Parroquía Sucre, similarly notes the gravity of the current political and economic situation: “The economic war is affecting us. This is a small group of bourgeois who control the economic market of the country. It’s a real monster we’re fighting. We want to make it so the people can produce our own resources and we don’t depend on the monopolies.”

Despite these immense challenges, many like Francine Montorola are nevertheless optimistic: “We are conscious that we are at war, but we’re going to come out victorious,” she said. “We know who our enemies are, and we are organizing ourselves and struggling to come out of this. These are difficult moments, but no one said people’s struggle was easy.

These responses to the economic war are met by freshly uncovered evidence of its depth and scope. While thousands marched through the streets on Friday, Caracas police discovered in Catia a cache of 33 tons of household products, including rice, diapers, dish soap, mayonnaise, tooth paste, deodorant, among other everyday items.

Commemorating the fall of the dictatorship and the martyrs of democracy

The 23rd of January is an historic date in which Venezuelans annually take to the streets to honor those fallen in the struggle against the Péres Jiménez dictatorship. However, for the thousands assembled in El Calvario on Friday, the 23rd of January is also a date which commemorates the more than 5000 revolutionaries assassinated by the governments that succeeded Pérez Jiménez during Venezuela’s 40-year long era of “pacted democracy,” known as the Fourth Republic, which only came to a close with Hugo Chávez’s election in 1998. A significant proportion of these political killings occurred during the 1989 rebellion by the popular classes against neoliberal austerity measures, known as the Caracazo, in which as many as 3,000 people were gunned down by the Venezuelan army.<

Nonetheless, for those attending Friday’s march, this commemoration is anything but merely historical, but, on the contrary, has real implications for the present conjuncture. For Antonia Díaz, 40, the stakes are high: “If we allow this revolution to be lost, the same people [in power] during those years [of dictatorship] will come after us, the people, of Chávez…We will defend this process to the death.”

According to PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) youth leader Brian Mirandés, 21, the danger of returning to this not-so-distant past of brutal state repression is hardly abstract:

“In the past, many comrades died as a consequence of the repression of the Fourth Republic, comrades disappeared, one of the closest [fallen comrades], that we have now is Robert Serra, with whom I had the opportunity to work alongside, who was assassinated by the Right, by Imperialism.”
In the eyes of the thousands attending Friday’s rally, Robert Serra, the youngest ever National Assembly deputy who was assassinated by Colombian paramilitaries in October at the age of 27, is a symbol both of hope and of what is at stake in the Bolivarian Revolution. President Maduro himself underscored Serra’s inspirational legacy when he proposed that the slain deputy’s mother, Zulay Aguirre, run for her son’s National Assembly seat in the elections this coming December.

Maduro denounces visit by rightwing ex-presidents

In his speech at Friday’s rally, President Nicolás Maduro denounced the visit by Sebastián Piñera, Andrés Pastrana, and Felipe Calderón, the ex-presidents of Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, respectively, who will be attending a forum organized by the Venezuelan opposition on Monday. The Venezuelan leader stated that these ex-presidents’ hands would be “forever stained in blood” in the event of a coup d'état in Venezuela.

The President underscored that the guests of the forum revealed the extreme rightwing character of the Venezuelan opposition, referencing Piñera’s role in the privatization of Chilean education and repression of the struggles by the indigenous Mapuche people as well as Calderón’s responsibility for the disastrous Mexican drug war and links to the drug cartels.

www.venezuelanalysis.com

Who Will Stand With Venezuela?

International Solidarity and Survival

by W.T. Whitney, Jr.
January 19, 2015

Who in the world stands with a country when it is under the looming threat of a major U.S. government intervention? When Guatemala (1954), the Dominican Republic (1965), Chile (1973), and Haiti (2004) were in trouble, there was no one. Cuba was different; over the years, at different times, the Soviet Union, Latin American countries, and nations voting in the UN General Assembly all weighed in with support and solidarity. And Cuba’s socialist revolution survives.

Now the U. S. government targets Venezuela, its socialist government and national sovereignty. This time, however, the intended victim is not alone.

For the nearly 15 years of Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, the U.S government has lavished funds on forces opposing governments headed by President Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro. The U.S. media have uniformly condemned both administrations on grounds of repression. The two embassies have gone without ambassadors since 2010.

The U.S. government enacted sanctions against Venezuela in late December, 2014. Sponsors of the legislation alleged government resorted to violence in its response to street protests earlier in the year. Yet U.S. and European media said nothing about the demonstrations having taken place mostly in well-to-do, urban neighborhoods, nothing about protesters themselves having been responsible for almost all the killings carried out during the turmoil.

U.S. pressure mounts in the context of media hype advertising the Maduro government as vulnerable. And not without reason: the charismatic Chavez and his overwhelming election victories are gone; Maduro won the presidential election in April 2013 by only a slim margin. And Venezuela’s economy is in big trouble.

In December, Venezuela’s Central Bank declared the economy to be in recession, also that inflation for the previous 12 months had been 63.6 percent, one of the world’s highest rates. High demand for dollars, exit of which is restricted, is fueling a black market. Now oil prices having fallen to levels barely enough to cover production costs. Because crude oil sales account for 95 percent of Venezuela’s export income, the economy has recently experienced a 30 percent drop in foreign exchange revenue. Business reporters warn of a likely default on bonds coming due soon. Blackouts and shortages of basic consumer goods are common. The government attributes the shortages in large measure to hoarding by commercial interests opposed to Maduro.

China brings good news

There is good news, however. Government ministers journeyed to China in December to be followed by President Maduro in early January. They attended the first ever conference between high Chinese government leaders and representatives of almost all the CELAC nations (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations).

Maduro told reporters that China would be providing his country with $20 billion in new investments, augmenting some $45 billion already loaned over the past ten years. Oil exports to China, presently half a million barrels of crude per day, will be doubling over the coming year.

Leaving China, Maduro went on to oil-producing nations in the Middle East. After visits to Iran and Qatar, he told a TeleSur reporter that, “We [of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] will be taking corrective measures so that the petroleum market returns to the level where it should be.” He counselled that, “We must not utilize petroleum as a cover for forcing countries to submit. That would be to return to wars and barbarism, and cannot be.” Maduro obtained a new credit line from banks in Qatar.

To reply on numbers, statements, and news reports to show that Venezuela has allies hardly does justice to Venezuela’s role in a drama of history. But Venezuelan analyst Jesús Rafael Gamarra Luna has words equal to the task.

Venezuela and the beginning of the end of Yankee imperialism.

[Gamarra] titles his recent article, “Venezuela and the beginning of the end of Yankee imperialism.” Venezuela, he says, is dealing “the last political blow that ... defines in a pristine and clear way the beginning of a new epoch for humanity.”

Specifically, “a strategic alliance was made with China that assures development of the Plan for the Homeland. A major international rearguard is being built for the development of socialism, of a world at peace. It gives Latin America and the Caribbean the best prospect for sustainable human development, better by far than the United States and Europe.”

He describes a “definitive turn of Venezuelan, international, and Caribbean international politics that distances us from the development parameters the United States and Europe impose as the capitalist model. [Now] Venezuela is not alone … Commander Chavez planned it that way, to fashion a new geometry of power, a new multipolar world.”

Venezuela's emancipatory project continues

Cuban journalist Hedelberto López Blanch agrees, but is more restrained: “The times are past where a single country can promulgate international decisions unilaterally. That’s because in recent decades many groupings have appeared that make this world more multi-polar.” He mentions alliances like “UNASUR, MERCOSUR, ALBA, CELAC, CARICOM, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), G-77, and the Euro-Asiatic Economic Union.” They “impede the effects of these arbitrary measures.”

Presidents Jacobo Arbenz, Salvador Allende, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and Dominican “Constitutionalist” rebel Francisco Caamaño paid the price of not having their backs covered in the way President Maduro is being protected now. So the prognosis may not be all bad for Venezuela’s emancipatory project to continue.
W.T. Whitney Jr. is a retired pediatrician and political journalist living in Maine.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/19/who-will-stand-with-venezuela/